I jot that down and note that I’m no longer getting pretty back stories, but just the facts. Prey isn’t patient and honestly, facts are always worth more than stories.
Usually.
“Croft four is currently vacant, but will be filled by an appropriate candidate soon.”
“Empty?” I ask.
Both Vuitton and Louis peer over their broad shoulders at me, and the stark silence that settles in after my question lays a blanket of eeriness over the room.
“Yes.” Prey carries on. “Croft Five—”
“What happened to the vampire in charge of Croft Four? Did they pass away?”
Prey closes his eyes slowly, and his tolerance with my hunger for more information is very obviously wearing thin.
“Croft four was found dead twelve nights ago.” Louis says from across the room.
My heart stutters.
“Um. Hold on. Time the fuck out.” I stand suddenly and face Prey. “Is this a common thing for vampires? Members of your immortal council just fucking drop dead on the regular?”
Prey’s attention shifts over my face, his gaze scanning. For what? I don’t know.
He lowers himself lazily into the spot on the small green couch that I just vacated. He kicks his feet up on my little coffee table as he goes.
The asshole.
“There have been some… issues recently. Creature Control is investigating, but a small group of us are looking into it ourselves. Hence, recruiting a pain-in-my-ass human to delay everyone from finding out Kyra Vega has been murdered.”
My pen itches to write down all those words that stand out in his explanation.
Issues.
Creature control.
Delay...
I try to process each of them slowly.
Issues is his pretty way of saying someone is slaying vampires. Important ones. I already knew their kind were deadly. I just didn’t know they killed their own kind. Until Kyra warned me when she last visited me during an unapproved meeting in my own bedroom.
That’s how I knew it was serious. She never bothered to come see me aside from our monthly catch-ups. If she risked coming here to see me, I knew she was scared. She spoke of her rape and how she was turned.
I try not to think of it now with Prey watching so closely but the memory of the fear in her eyes creeps in every day.
I can’t help it.
The notebook in my lap calls back to me.
What I don’t have any details on whatever Creature Control is.
“What’s the Creature Control?”
Prey’s head leans back and his eyes close as if he’s asking God himself why his perfect afterlife is being tormented with my questions. His feet hit the floor and his legs spread wide.
“Creature Control is Crimson City’s body of law and order. They’re equivalent to the FBI of your world,” Vuitton tells me thoroughly. “Louis and I are agents for Creature Control.”
Aww. He’s such a good boy, of course he’s a critter cop.
The way he kneels on his hunches, soaking up the sunlight against his smooth golden skin gives me the immense reminder of how puppy-like he really is.
My heart settles. It’s a strange elation when someone calms you without even trying to. Maybe Prey finds me annoying, and the other vampires don’t care if I live or die, but at least I’m not completely alone in all of this.
“She’s back!” Vuitton bangs his forehead off my newly smudged glass window and Louis perks right up as they both turn irate.
Over what, you might ask?
“Not again,” I whisper to myself.
“She ran past this building three times in the last hour!” Vuitton’s shoulders flex as he stands tall before the window.
“You’re fucking right, she has.” Louis slams his hand wide open against the wall and their eyes are so wide they’re bulging. “Running by here three times. She’s got some balls.” The two of them fog up the glass as they huff in unison. “Come down my street one more time you flat-footed floozie! See what happens!”
Their heads swivel as far as the laws of physics will allow them, until the menacing jogger passes out of sight.
Vuitton claps his friend on the back once more, both of them beaming with pleased smiles plastered on their obnoxious faces.
These are their police?
I sigh heavily and turn my attention back down to the vampire dozing on my couch.
“Croft Five, Aston Cardence.” He doesn’t even look at me, which is good. Because the moment he says that name, my heart thunders to life. I try to keep a straight face. “You won’t like him. And he’ll make a point to make sure you don’t.”
I swallow hard.
I wait for him to say the one thing I’m waiting for.
Say it. Say you suspect him!
“Croft Six—”
My breath shakes as I cut him off. “That’s it? He’s mean, that’s all you have for me?”
One of his eyelids creeps open as he makes little effort to look at me. “That’s it. He’s an idiot, and he isn’t important.”
I shift on my feet and try to swallow down the apprehension that’s crawling through me from everything my sister told me about the cruelest man on the vampiric High Council.
Tell me they’ve looked into Aston’s whereabouts during my sister’s death.
“Croft Six—”
“How many deaths have there been in the council this month!?” My jaw clenches, despite how hard I inhale and exhale through the grinding of my teeth.
“Why are you so impossible to train? Why can’t I just give you the information and you accept it? Council issues are none of your business.”
He stands then, and his lean height towers over me. Slitted eyes like a snake’s glare down on me.
“I’m putting my life on the line, and for what? Closure? What are we stalling for?”
“To further CC investigations.” Vuitton fully turns away from his perch at the window now, giving me his full attention. “CC has jurisdiction over all supernatural crimes. Vampires have their own council, wolves have their own pack, and pixies have their own pods, but the CC are neutral outsiders. Rival thinks someone within the vampire’s council is responsible for a few human murders and the last two killings that have occurred within the council. He
